Stand behind the work with the plane before you. Plane with the arms (and from the shoulder), not with the whole body. Try to shove the plane straight ahead, also to plane as equally and evenly as possible over the surface; for while it is comparatively easy to get a surface smooth it is quite another thing to keep it true or to make it true if warped or winding.
Fig. 635.
Fig. 636.
Fig. 637.
The natural tendency, and a common fault, is to begin and end the stroke as shown in Fig. 635. Rolling the body back and forth, instead of pushing steadily with the arms from the shoulder, aggravates this trouble. The result of this way (which is unconscious at first) is that the surface after planing is apt to be as shown in Fig. 636. To prevent this, press down with the left hand on the forward part of the plane during the first part of the stroke, and with the right hand on the rear part of the plane during the last part of the stroke (Fig. 637).
In planing wood which is dirty or rough, it is best to lift the plane from the work when drawing it back for a fresh stroke, or to draw it back so that only the point touches the board, or to draw it back on edge, but in planing small surfaces of clean wood it is not usually worth while to take this precaution.
